Monday – Memorial Day
In observance of Memorial Day, I’m going with a John Greenleaf Whittier poem, written in the first full year of the Civil War (1862). The poem represents the interior struggle of someone who opposes war in general and yet sees the necessity of this one in particular. It is how I feel about Ukraine’s struggle against the Russian invasion—and for that matter, how I feel about the Civil War. Like Whittier, I believe that nothing short of war could have an ended a practice as evil and as deeply entrenched as slavery.
The names of the dead that Whittier mentions in the poem, I suspect, are young men that he either knew or who were from his community. In other words, war is not an abstraction to him. As an ardent abolitionist—one who was attacked by mobs and had his offices burned down for speaking against slavery in the 1830s, ’40s, and ’50s—he saw the necessity of the conflict, but that doesn’t mean he overlooked the attendant horrors. When he mentions standing on a “stricken field,” it isn’t only the field that is stricken.
As he stands there he imagines being visited by two heavenly but discouraged watchers, the angels Peace and Freedom. Peace, who is losing hope, looks to Freedom for optimism, only to hear an exasperated Freedom complain about infighting and incompetence in the Union army, which he describes as “a senseless brawl.” Perhaps those more conversant with the Civil War than I am can tell me who he means by the one “who guards through love his ghastly throne” (cares more about his position than winning?); who is fearful of and overly reverential to the Confederates; and whose timidity is failing to speedily supply needed aid.
The war was going poorly for the Union in 1862—the tide would not turn until 1863 with Gettysburg—and Freedom tells the poet that this fight for freedom stands in marked contrast with heroic stands taken in the past, including: the reform-minded Husites against the forces of the established church (Ziska); the Haitian rebellion against the French (Toussaint); resistance to the French reign of terror (Sidney—Sydney Carton (?)—is guillotined in Tale of Two Cities); the forces of Parliament against the Royalists on the moor of Marston; George Washington in the Battle of Trenton after crossing the Delaware; and Piedmont freedom fighters against the Austro-Hungarian empire at the Battle of Magenta.
Peace, to reassure Freedom, counsels patience, to which Freedom gloomily replies, “Too late.” But then holy hope makes an entrance:
A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.
Asserting that “all is possible with God,” this vision alludes to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: the image of the winepress that “must be trod” is (I think) an allusion to “He has trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored”— which itself is an allusion to the Book of Revelation, which reads (14:19-20), ”So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.”
However necessary the war, however, the deaths themselves are terrible, and it is those who died that we memorialize today. As Peace puts it,
What price was Ellsworth’s, young and brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop’s grave?
The Watchers
By John Greenleaf WhittierBeside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.The other’s brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.“How long!”—I knew the voice of Peace,
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?“O Lord, how long! One human soul
Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.“What price was Ellsworth’s, young and brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop’s grave?“O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.”Then Freedom sternly said: “I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.“I knelt with Ziska’s hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint’s cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.“The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta’s charges sped.“But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.“On either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.“Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?“Why watch to see who win or fall?
I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl.”“Nay,” Peace implored: “yet longer wait;
The doom is near, the stake is great:
God knoweth if it be too late.“Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare.”“Too late!” the stern, sad voice replied,
“Too late!” its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.“Still hope and trust,” it sang; “the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!”